HKB
CHORUS. A stubborn daughter of a stubborn sire, This ill-starred maiden kicks against the pricks.
CREON. Well, let her know the stubbornest of wills Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron, O’er-heated in the fire to brittleness, Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through. A snaffle curbs the fieriest steed, and he Who in subjection lives must needs be meek. But this proud girl, in insolence well-schooled, First overstepped the established law, and then— A second and worse act of insolence— She boasts and glories in her wickedness. Now if she thus can flout authority Unpunished, I am woman, she the man. But though she be my sister’s child or nearer Of kin than all who worship at my hearth, Nor she nor yet her sister shall escape The utmost penalty, for both I hold, As arch-conspirators, of equal guilt. Bring forth the older; even now I saw her Within the palace, frenzied and distraught. The workings of the mind discover oft Dark deeds in darkness schemed, before the act. More hateful still the miscreant who seeks When caught, to make a virtue of a crime.
ANTIGONE. Would’st thou do more than slay thy prisoner?
CREON. Not I, thy life is mine, and that’s enough.
ANTIGONE. Why dally then? To me no word of thine Is pleasant: God forbid it e’er should please; Nor am I more acceptable to thee. And yet how otherwise had I achieved A name so glorious as by burying A brother? so my townsmen all would say, Where they not gagged by terror, Manifold A king’s prerogatives, and not the least That all his acts and all his words are law.
CREON. Of all these Thebans none so deems but thou.
ANTIGONE. These think as I, but bate their breath to thee.
CREON. Hast thou no shame to differ from all these?
ANTIGONE. To reverence kith and kin can bring no shame.
CREON. Was his dead foeman not thy kinsman too?
ANTIGONE. One mother bare them and the self-same sire.
CREON. Why cast a slur on one by honoring one?
ANTIGONE. The dead man will not bear thee out in this.
CREON. Surely, if good and evil fare alive.
ANTIGONE. The slain man was no villain but a brother.
CREON. The patriot perished by the outlaw’s brand.
ANTIGONE. Nathless the realms below these rites require.
CREON. Not that the base should fare as do the brave.
ANTIGONE. Who knows if this world’s crimes are virtues there?
CREON. Not even death can make a foe a friend.
ANTIGONE. My nature is for mutual love, not hate.
CREON. Die then, and love the dead if thou must; No woman shall be the master while I live. [Enter ISMENE]
CHORUS. Lo from out the palace gate, Weeping o’er her sister’s fate, Comes Ismene; see her brow, Once serene, beclouded now, See her beauteous face o’erspread With a flush of angry red.
CREON. Woman, who like a viper unperceived Didst harbor in my house and drain my blood, Two plagues I nurtured blindly, so it proved, To sap my throne. Say, didst thou too abet This crime, or dost abjure all privity?
ISMENE. I did the deed, if she will have it so, And with my sister claim to share the guilt.
ANTIGONE. That were unjust. Thou would’st not act with me At first, and I refused thy partnership.
ISMENE. But now thy bark is stranded, I am bold To claim my share as partner in the loss.
ANTIGONE. Who did the deed the under-world knows well: A friend in word is never friend of mine.
ISMENE. O sister, scorn me not, let me but share Thy work of piety, and with thee die.
ANTIGONE. Claim not a work in which thou hadst no hand; One death sufficeth. Wherefore should’st thou die?
ISMENE. What would life profit me bereft of thee?
ANTIGONE. Ask Creon, he’s thy kinsman and best friend.
ISMENE. Why taunt me? Find’st thou pleasure in these gibes?
ANTIGONE. ’Tis a sad mockery, if indeed I mock.
ISMENE. O say if I can help thee even now.